Google Map of Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751 crash site

Scandinavian Airlines Flight 751, a McDonnell Douglas MD-81, took off from Stockholm-Arlanda Airport, Sweden, in the early morning of December 27, 1991. The airliner was piloted by Danish captain Stefan G. Rasmussen and Swedish first officer Ulf Cedermark. It was headed to Warsaw, Poland through Copenhagen, Denmark.

After 25 seconds of flight, noise and vibrations from the engines were first noticed. The flight crew responded by throttling down, but an automatic system simultaneously increased throttle as a response to increasing altitude. An SAS flight captain, Per Holmberg, who was on board as a passenger noticed the problems early and hurried to the cockpit to assist the crew. Problems with the other engine began 39 seconds later, and finally both engines failed at 76 and 78 seconds into flight, at 980 meters of altitude.

The pilot responded to the engine loss by pitching the aircraft down before leveling it, to try and make the aircraft glide the longest possible distance without stalling. The pilots requested a return to Arlanda and attempted the restart procedure, but with the plane breaking through the cloud cover at 270 meters - the pilot chose an opening in the forest, near Vängsjöbergs säteri in Gottröra, Uppland, for the immediate emergency landing.

The plane hit the trees before touching down, losing a large part of the right wing. The plane broke into three parts before coming to a stop on the field. 25 people were injured, two of them seriously. Nobody died in the accident, which is known in Sweden as Gottrörakraschen (the Gottröra crash). One of the reasons for the lack of deaths was the brace position.